


Homes for us everywhere

by epersonae



Series: the only life you could save [24]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Astronomy, Bureau of Benevolence, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Processing Trauma, young adult Angus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Angus tries to understand the events he set in motion that led to the death of former Governor Kalen. A friend is made. The stars come out. Dinner is late.





	Homes for us everywhere

**Author's Note:**

> This follows not long after the events of [The Reckoning Arrives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251296). If you haven't read that, you may find this baffling. (It's a hell of an adventure, you should should check it out!)

Angus McDonald has a lot of places he can call home. He’s spent the last few days in one of them: a house in Neverwinter, big enough for the four who live there most of the time, and for him, and sometimes Magnus, and any guests who might drop by. He’s always welcome in Magnus’s home in Ravens Roost, too, and he has a room at Merle’s Bottlenose Cove manor. Not to mention his dorm apartment at the Miller School, the quiet retreat where he keeps most of his books, case notes, and arcane research.

But as he walks out of the hangar at the Bureau of Balance, he realizes that this was the first place he had to call home after Grandpa got sick, the first place that felt safe. And even if some of it wasn’t what it seemed, it’s true that he was welcomed here for himself and his abilities, that he got to learn and grow and find people who cared for him.

He waves to Avi; there’s someone new on duty with him, and as he walks through the quad and between the buildings, Angus sees lots of new people. It’s that way every time he comes up: new people, doing new things, buildings rebuilt and new ones too. Usually he revels in the palpable excitement, the energy of people doing interesting things, engaged in making the world a better place.

Occasionally, he gets a little melancholy, and maybe today is one of those days, remembering what it was like when they were saving the world in secret...and for him, when everyone there was family, someone he knew and could trust. There’s familiar faces, but not the way it used to be. (He misses those early magic lessons with Taako. He misses training with Noelle and the gals in the icosagon, and learning violin with Johann.)

Still, it’s a home he can come back to, a place where he’s always welcome. Even the people he doesn’t really know will still wave or say hi; everyone knows him here, he still has his own room, he can still go pretty much anywhere. He greets people cheerily as he walks through the halls of the living quarters. He drops his overnight bag on his bed — which is really too short, he should ask about getting a longer one — and sits down with a thud, staring up at the Jeff Angel poster with its curling edges, another memory of childhood past.

_ “Jeff Angel Calls His Dad Every Day!”  _ he mutters in imitation of the wrestling star, then takes out his stone of farspeech. It’s a quick conversation, just letting Magnus know he’d gotten there okay, promising to tell Lucretia hi from him, but another reminder of how things have changed since then. And the little twinge of guilt when Magnus asks so thoughtfully if everything’s okay: Angus wonders if it’s like how his mom felt all that time when she didn’t tell anybody — couldn’t tell anybody? — what was going on.

He hangs up, and there’s still a couple of hours until dinner. He came up early, which maybe wasn’t exactly necessary, but he could go for a walk? Or a snack, food in the cafeteria’s usually pretty good….

He gets iced tea and a cookie to go and strolls around the grounds of the Bureau until he finds a bench under a broad-leafed tree, a spot away from the main paths that still has a good view of the main quad. He leans his back up against the tree, its shade a cool respite on the warm summer day as he watches people going about their work.

He doesn’t see the other person approach so much as he hears them, the crunch of footsteps on the path beside him. But they don’t seem to see him until they come around the tree.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t realize anyone—”

Angus looks up into the slightly abashed face of a half-orc, also holding a cup and a cookie.

“It’s you,” he says, thinking back to the dinner at Merle’s. “Kenneth, right?”

“I didn’t think you’d remember,” Kenneth replied. “With everything going on.”

“Well-trained memory,” Angus says matter-of-factly. It’s the kind of thing other people take as a brag, but he doesn’t mean it that way. Kenneth nods.

“Anyway, you’ve got this spot, so I’ll—”

“Sit?” Angus asks, realizing this is his chance to figure out what really happened, maybe get a little perspective before he talks to Lucretia. “There’s plenty of room, and you looked like you were trying to get a break.”

“You sure?” The look on Kenneth’s face reads as suspicion, looking for some ulterior motive. Which, maybe he has one, but no ill will. Angus scoots to one side of the bench by way of an answer.

Kenneth takes the offered spot. “So, uh, you’re…” He trails off, eats a bite of cookie, licks his fingers then looks uncomfortable about it.

“Mom gave you a job?” Angus asks.

“Yeah, she….” He takes a deep breath, looking down at his cup. “I didn’t expect that.”

Angus laughs softly.

“It’s just kinda how she works. What did you do before—” And then he cuts himself off, wincing as he looks sideways at the splash of chemical scar across Kenneth’s face.

Kenneth takes a deep breath.

“Break heads, stand around and listen to other people talk. Dunno.” He shrugs, then lets out a little huff of a laugh. “Good days I got to cook.” He stares out towards the main domes, takes a drink of his iced tea.

Angus nods. “Was that—” He thinks of his family (except for Taako) gathered around the table, everyone on edge. “Was that a good day?”

Kenneth’s laugh in reply is generous and open.

“Best day, worst day, I guess. But yeah, KP duty, anyway. Worked out alright.”

“I’m surprised Taako didn’t offer you a job just to one-up Mom,” he says. “Or at least try to get you to sign up for classes in the cooking side of the school.”

“There’s cooking classes?” asked Kenneth, looking hopeful. “I didn’t know.”

“He’s probably been busy,” Angus says, thinking of how worn and withdrawn Taako had looked when they came back to Neverwinter. “And this is a good place….” He looks around, everything new and familiar, the hum of activity all around them.

“It is,” says Kenneth, a touch of awe in his voice. “They’re trying to do good.”

When Angus closes his eyes, he can see the giant voidfish when he first drank the ichor, the flash of light when a Relic was “destroyed”, the baby voidfish floating in its tank on that last day.

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad I can—” Kenneth looks at Angus then, a little frown in his eyebrows. “You know, what you did, I guess everybody got mad at you or whatever, but….” Kenneth swallows heavily. “...he needed to get taken out, and I’m glad you made it happen.”

“Okay.” Angus doesn’t know what to say to that, really. He hadn’t been thinking about people like Kenneth, only about his family, about getting revenge for Magnus, about maybe bringing Lucretia and Taako closer together. “I didn’t know it was gonna….”

Kenneth cracks a smile. “I bet.” But then his eyes are serious. “No reason why you would, us way out there. You know, I grew up making those tacos, never thought I’d get to….”

“Oh shit, wow, is that what it was? Why you ended up helping?” That’s the part he’s been trying to piece together.

“I mean, that’s why they talked to me, I guess. But….” Kenneth takes another bite of cookie, chewing slowly, his eyes distant and unfocused. “It’s also why I was there when they, when he…. I’m really sorry.”

“How do you mean?” asks Angus, trying to keep the strain of anxiety out of his voice.

“They really fucking care about you. It’s...funny, right? You know ‘em better than I do, I guess, but like, they can be kind of shitty to each other” — and when he says it that plainly, Angus can’t help but laugh — “but as soon as he, Kalen, as soon as he said something about you they both kinda lost their shit. I’ve seen some things, you know, before, but that was something else. You, and, and….”

“Magnus?” asks Angus, already knowing before he asks.

“Yeah. Like, damn.” Kenneth pauses, again with that hint of a frown. “Are they okay?”

Angus takes a deep breath, thinks of the silent tension stretched over Reaper House, the unspoken anguish in Taako’s eyes when he looked at him. “I think they’re glad it’s over. You know, they’ve gotten through a lot before, they’ll…. They’ll be okay. You’ve probably seen mom more than I have, if you’ve been here.”

“I don’t know her, though,” Kenneth says. “She’s very…. In charge?”

“Yeah. We’re supposed to have dinner tonight, which….” He winces, and then his face falls. “I’m afraid she’s still upset.”

“Least you have somebody who cares if you’re in trouble,” Kenneth says, looking down. He picks at his cookie, dropping crumbs into the grass.

Angus doesn’t know what to say about that. Even before the Bureau, he knew his Grandpa loved him, prepared him for the dangers of the world. He looks from the solemn half-orc beside him out to the main quad, where Avi and Killian are exchanging some kind of elaborate high-five. He wants to tell Kenneth that it’s okay now, that he’s going to have people, but he doesn’t know Kenneth that well, really.

“I’m sorry.”

Kenneth shrugs. “She’s sending the Bureau, I guess. Try to bring all this” — he waves a hand— “there. She talks a lot about healing the world, seems like a big thing. How does one person…?”

“You’ve seen her,” says Angus, letting a little pride slip into his voice. “She gives a shit, and all this gave her an opportunity, and….” He shrugs. “It’s the B.o.B., it’s how we do.”

They sit in silence for a moment, eating their cookies and drinking their iced tea. A breeze ruffles the leaves on the tree above their heads, carrying the sound of people talking and laughing. A mowing robot whirrs past them and the smell of cut grass fills the air in its wake. Condensation from the iced tea pools on Angus’s palm. 

He thinks of Carey, her face exhausted but proud as she hustles him into a glass ball to Bottlenose Cove, saying “we got him, kid.” The endpoint of everything he’d been working towards, and it happened out of his sight.

“How did Kalen die?” Angus asks.

Kenneth leans back and stares up into the tree; his voice is low and hesitant when he finally speaks. “Never saw him scared before. Wasn’t even the magic, really….” 

He blinks and looks back at Angus, who nods vigorously in an attempt to be encouraging.

“When they said Magnus wasn’t coming…. He looked scared, and yeah, never saw him scared before. All that bluster…. You know, he could be—” 

Kenneth goes silent, still avoiding Angus’s gaze. Under the scar, his jaw twitches. Angus nods again. Kenneth takes a deep breath.

“And there was this fight…. Taako gave me this crazy sword? It’s kind of a blur, but he, he,  _ he _ got it away from me….” 

Angus’s eyes go wide thinking of the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom: in this half-orc’s hands, in  _ Kalen’s  _ hands. 

Kenneth draws another shuddering breath, before saying in a near-whisper, “I thought I was done for.”

He clears his throat before continuing, “Then she did this thing— I don’t know shit about magic, right? But suddenly he’s in chains, and he’s  _ scared,  _ and I still can’t quite get my head around that.”

Angus tries to think of spells he knows of that would have that effect.  _ “Imprisonment,”  _ he murmurs. Ninth level; he’s been studying magic since he was 11 and he’s nowhere near those spells.

“Yeah, I guess. The three of ‘em are….” Kenneth bounces one leg nervously, looking at Angus out of the corner of his eye. “It was a lot of big weird magic.” 

He frowns, and Angus worries he’s asked too much.

“It’s okay if you don’t wanna—”

Kenneth shakes his head once, sharply. 

“All he said — Taako, I mean — was that it was for Julia? Magnus’s wife? And then he was just...dead. Just like that.”

Angus involuntarily sucks in a breath, and Kenneth says, “That’s a big spell, too, isn’t it?”

Angus nods, still trying to take it in.

“So that’s how he died. Had to fight people I knew, after that, dunno what the fuck they thought they were still fighting for.” Kenneth’s jaw pulses again, then he takes another drink of iced tea; the noise of the straw drawing air feels unnaturally loud. “That what you needed to know?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” And that’s it. He thought if he knew how it happened he’d feel complete, like the story had a tidy ending. Like a Caleb Cleveland book. Since he was a kid he’s liked that kind of narrative symmetry. It’s not like that, though. There’s loose ends and healing yet to happen, and they’ll never be able to tell Magnus, and then Angus wonders if Kenneth has anyone to talk to the way he talks to Mavis and his other friends. “Are you…. Are you okay?” 

Kenneth shrugs. He starts to open his mouth like he means to say something, but then thinks better of it. He finishes his cookie, brushes crumbs off onto his pant leg. “Doesn’t feel quite real,” he says finally. “This is nice, I guess…. Anyway, I should….”

“Thank you,” says Angus. “For helping them.”

“Yeah, well. Yeah.” He stands. “There’s probably people waiting to see you or whatever.”

There’s lots of people Angus could visit with while he’s here, of course. But there’s something in this half-orc’s voice, a yearning Angus thinks he recognizes. A yearning like the one he’d tried to cover with solving mysteries, with trying to be useful. With knowing as much of his new home as he could.

“Do you have training scheduled this afternoon? Have you seen the observatory?” he asks in quick succession, and Kenneth shakes his head to both. “I mean, it’s daytime, so we’re not really going to see anything through the ‘scope, but there’s a planetarium, and that’s really cool. Carey told me that Lucas’s mom, you know, Doctor Miller, that she designed it as a prototype for the Cosmoscope. Do you know about the Cosmoscope?”

Kenneth shakes his head, blinking in confusion as Angus jumps up and starts off towards the dome in question. Angus stops, and looks at him with a grin. “It’s a cool story! I mean, it’s also pretty sad, because of the Relics and stuff, but it’s really interesting and pretty important science, too. I was there for some of it, and Carey told me a bunch, you should ask her and Killian about it.”

“I don’t really…. I don’t know ‘em that well,” he says. 

“They’re cool,” Angus replies emphatically. “They’re nice to pretty much everybody, except jerks. Maybe you’ll get to be on Killian’s team at a retreat, that was fun.” He continues walking towards the observatory, and this time Kenneth follows along.

“I think she’s doing some of our trainings this week,” Kenneth says.

“Neat! She taught me to use a full-size crossbow when I was a little kid. She’s a really thoughtful teacher.”

They chat easily as they approach the dome. Angus leads them to a small side door; it’s locked when he tries it, but he always carries his lockpicks, a long-ago Candlenights gift from Carey.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to do this?” asks Kenneth, peering over Angus’s shoulder as he crouches to fiddle with the mechanism.

“I mean, I could just Blink, but it’s not warded and this doesn’t use any spell slots….” He chuckles, thinking back to the first time he ever saw Taako. “Not that I’m saving them for anything, but still.”

Kenneth makes a non-committal noise, and Angus cranes his head around to look at him after he gets the locks to release. The half-orc looks mildly uncomfortable.

“You know…. I teach magic. Most folks can learn at least a little….” When Kenneth doesn’t reply, he stands and opens the door. “Sometimes it’s handy, anyways.” He takes out his wand and casts Light, which just barely illuminates the vastness of the dome. Immediately he flashes back to sneaking in and reading under the stars when he was supposed to be in bed. 

He looks at Kenneth, who blinks a little as he looks around the open space with the telescope, projector, and control panel in the center.

“Is it better without the light?” he asks while he walks over to the control panel. “I can turn it off if you’d rather use darkvision.”

Kenneth startles at that, like nobody had ever asked, and it seems to shake him out of his reverie.

“Yeah, no, that’s fine. You need it, yeah?”

Angus fiddles with the panel, switching the operations from telescope to projector, locking the dome roof shut, programming in his favorite patterns. “Not gonna in a sec here. Just make yourself comfortable, I guess?”

But instead he senses Kenneth moving up behind him, looking over his shoulder (and there’s not many on the moon taller than he is, these days).

“How’s it work?” the half-orc asks, with a tone that sounds like he actually cares about the answer. And Angus kind of can’t help himself, explaining how it’s all connected together, how the arcane and the scientific blend into one seamless system, how it’s synchronised with the actual workings of the Material Plane but can be set to display any time or place.

“Lucas has one at the Miller School, but I think this one is better, Doctor Miller was….” He scrunches up his nose, thinking of how rarely his mother mentions her, the little tells on her face that show how sad she is when she does. And conversely, the pride in Lucas’s voice when  _ he _ talks about her, but never about what she did for the Bureau. He sighs. “Anyway. You probably want to actually see it do the thing, huh?” he says with a self-deprecating laugh, then punches the final button.

Kenneth looks from the planetarium projector as it starts to turn and glow, his brows furrowed when he looks at Angus. As Angus ends the Light spell, simulated starlight sparkles around them. Kenneth seems again about to say something, but just looks at Angus instead for another beat before looking up into the planetarium dome.

“Wow, looks like real stars,” he says. “Is that the Belt of Bahgtru?”

Angus squints, following the arc of Kenneth’s hand up towards the dome’s ceiling. “I think so? It was called the Summer Dragon where I grew up. You know, before I lived up here. Wait, hold on.” He fiddles with the panel again until there are lines and labels creating an extra layer of information floating around them. They walk around the room together, comparing names of the stars and constellations, and Angus shifts the sky forwards and backwards to compare the seasons in the places they know.

“Up here’s different too,” Angus says. “I can adjust this, but it’s even better when you open up the actual telescope. Doctor Miller set it up so you can really see the whole sky….”

“She’s the one with the Cosmoscope?”

He nods.

“She’s not around anymore?”

“No, she….I never met her, but she made this, and most of the base, and invented a bunch of cool stuff. I guess she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see, in the Cosmoscope?” He rubs the back of his neck, then he looks back up at the artificial stars, the light shimmering around them. As he adjusts his glasses, suddenly something clicks into place that he’s never been able to figure out before. “Oh, now I get it.”

“What’s that?” asks Kenneth.

“That’s probably why Mom doesn’t really come in here, huh? Because it reminds her of Doctor Miller?”

“Were they…? I thought she and, um, your dad?”

“It’s complicated,” Angus says, not even sure where to begin. “I don’t know that much about it, really. Like, there’s a lot of stuff, not just  _ that  _ kind of stuff….” He trails off, blushing. “I see things, and people say stuff, and I’m pretty good at putting it together, but sometimes I still feel like I don’t understand…. Just, like, a lot of things?”

Kenneth clears his throat, shifting from foot to foot as he looks sidelong at Angus. “So it doesn’t get any easier?”

Angus blinks up into the dome. “I mean, it’s easier than it used to be.” He thinks of the years of careful negotiation around Taako and Lucretia, and then sitting between them on the porch swing. He imagines Lucretia in this very room, years ago, with a woman he never met. “I think maybe I understand a little more.”

Kenneth doesn’t say anything, just looks up. Angus follows his gaze: a constellation he knew as the Seven Princes growing up; a regional name that floats beside it says  _ the Queen’s Crows.  _ The orcish name isn’t listed, and Angus doesn’t know if there is one.

“I’m glad they had you there,” Angus says finally, trying to break the silence, hoping for a little more of the story, trying not to let his detective instincts overwhelm the tenuousness of this connection.

“I don’t know why I—” And Kenneth goes silent abruptly. Angus tries to look at him, but his face is almost unreadable in the dim light. Kenneth takes a slow deliberate breath.

He thinks of Taako and Merle in the hallway outside Lucretia’s private rooms, their moment of doubt on the edge of the apocalypse. Who were the good guys? Who were the bad guys? His  _ home,  _ was it the bad place? He’d had to follow what he’d learned as a detective, use that to guide his actions.

_ The ones looking for the truth, they’re never the bad guys. _

“They told it to you straight?” he says. “About Kalen, about Dad?”

Kenneth takes another breath, this one a little ragged around the edges. 

“They’re so good,” Angus says, low but emphatic. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Kenneth nod. Above them, the artificial stars drift slowly in their set orbits. For a while, they just watch the stars. When Angus sees the Woman Warrior rise up out of the east, he thinks of summers at Bottlenose Cove: it’s almost time. Another year of the sea and the woods and Merle’s manor, the whole family together; it’ll be different, he’s sure of that, though he can’t yet say how.

“You should come with us to Merle’s for summer vacation,” he says, before he’s even really processed the thought.

“Not my… I dunno. Your family, would feel weird.”

Angus turns in the dim room to look at Kenneth as best he can; his eyes have adjusted enough to read both uneasiness and hope in the half-orc’s face.

“No, no no no, it’ll be— There’s always lots of other folks. Carey and Killian always come down for a day at least, I bet they could bring you. I’ve brought friends before—”

Kenneth gives him a quizzical frown. “Friends.”

“I mean….” He considers for a moment, then nods. “Yeah, sure, why not. I’m here a lot, we can hang out—”

He’s interrupted by the chiming of his stone of farspeech.

“Oh shit,” Angus says, fishing the arcane device out of his pocket. “Sorry, I gotta—”

Kenneth steps away, turning to examine the planetarium’s control panel.

_ Angus are you okay?  _ his mother’s voice rises out of the stone.  _ I’m here, and usually you’re early, and I just….  _ She trails off with a anxious sigh, but when she resumes her voice is businesslike.  _ Do let me know if the cannonballs are malfunctioning again, Avi’s been making adjustments and you know how that is. _

“No, mom, I’m….” He pauses, looking at Kenneth, whose back is turned towards him. “I’m hanging out with a friend, forgot the time. I can be there in five, ten minutes? Go ahead and get us a table.”

He can almost hear her relieved smile through the stone, then she chuckles.  _ Sometimes I forget you know so many people up here. Whoever it is, tell them I said hi.  _ Another pause.  _ Take your time, I’ll be here. _

“Bye mom, I love you.”

Kenneth looks up from the panel. “I guess you gotta go.”

Angus walks over and starts powering down the system, glancing at Kenneth. “Yeah, but stone of farspeech, right?”

He blushes and looks away, then shakes his head. “Don’t have one. Kinda saving my pay for a bit.”

“Okay, well you go to the Fantasy Costco, specifically tell Garfield I sent you, no shenanigans, and he’ll give you a good deal. He owes me one.” The room goes dark as the last of the planetarium’s workings stop. Angus sparks a light spell at the end of his wand. Kenneth is looking at him, and Angus can’t read the expression at all.

“It’s cool if I call you?”

As they walk towards the door, Angus rolls his eyes, not meanly, but just…. “I already said you should come to vacation, so yeah.” He digs in his pockets for a scrap of paper, tapping it lightly with his wand before holding it out to Kenneth. “You should be able to attune the frequency with this.”

Kenneth looks at the arcane marks before carefully folding and placing the slip of paper in his pocket.

They don’t say much as they walk back towards the main quad. Already Angus is preparing for the conversation that lays ahead of him. They pause in front of the Fantasy Olive Garden; he peers inside but can’t see Lucretia from the sidewalk. Then he looks back at Kenneth, who clears his throat.

“Glad I ran into you,” Angus says.

“Yeah, I hope it… I hope it helps, know what happened a little more?”

“Of course, but also—” There’s something in the furrowed look of concern that calls to Angus as a kindred spirit. “I’m glad you’re here, it’s a good place, good for…” He looks around at the bustle of the base as afternoon shifts into evening: the new places and the old, the green trees and the shimmer of the distant stars. “You can find a new way from here.”

Kenneth takes a deep breath, lets out a long sigh. “I guess that’s the idea. Thanks.” He shakes Angus’s hand, which Angus didn’t expect and almost startles from, but then he pulls the half-orc into a hug. Just for a moment, and it’s awkward, but he feels Kenneth relax, just a little.

“You’re gonna be okay, man. Just, if you ever get a chance to train with Carey, watch out for smoke bombs.”

Kenneth laughs. “Smoke bombs, check. And uh….” He nods in the direction of the tinted windows of the restaurant. “Tell her I said hi, I guess.”

“Of course.”

As they stand together awkwardly, as if waiting for one to make the first move, a pair of half-elf twins stroll up, and one of them fake-punches Kenneth on the arm.

“Hey Kenny, come get dinner with us! Amanda says they’ve got meatloaf and it’s actually good.”

He heads into the doorway as Kenneth heads off with the two of them talking excitedly on either side of him. Angus pauses for a moment, still nervous about the conversation yet to come, but again taking in the vista of home and a new friend there.

**Author's Note:**

> This one took a long time to work through, and went places I wasn't expecting. (It was supposed to be the conversation between Angus and Lucretia!) Thanks to the Ducks for encouraging me when I was feeling self-conscious and self-indulgent, and as always to @hops, my favorite co-conspirator, both for egging me on and for some very thoughtful editing. (This time it's my turn to squint, I guess.)
> 
> Title comes from a quote on a mug I found while I was cleaning (from Northwest Bookfest 2000) -   
> “Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.” ― Hazel Rochman


End file.
